1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, such as a text processing apparatus, capable of inputting/outputting various information and editing text in various ways by specifying an area of the information.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, this type of text processing apparatus generally has an edit function of indicating an area to specify it as an editing unit. Specifying the area is usually performed by indicating two characters in text displayed on a screen. Specifically, a cursor is moved to a character at the head of the area and then an area indicating key is depressed to mark the beginning of the area. Then, the cursor is moved to a final character of the area and then the area indicating key is depressed again to mark the end of the area.
More specifically, as shown in an exemplary screen display in FIG. 7, one end of a desired area is indicated by a cursor 41 (see FIG. 7(A)) to mark the beginning of the area with an area beginning point marker 42 (see FIG. 7(B)), and thereafter, the cursor 41 is moved to the other end of the area on a screen (see FIG. 7(C)) to mark the end of the area with an area end point marker 43 (FIG. 7(D)). In this way, the area to be specified is marked so that text in the marked area can be edited through various processes, such as move it, or delete it.
However, with a text processing apparatus having a small screen, in the case of specifying a large area in text, as a cursor is moved to the end of the area after marking the beginning of the area, the screen is often automatically scrolled, and this causes the beginning of the area to disappear from the screen, as shown in FIG. 7 (A) to (D). Thus, when the beginning of the area disappears from the screen, the position of the beginning of the area cannot be confirmed, and there arises the problem that it cannot be recognized how large the area is specified. To confirm the beginning of the area, the screen must be scrolled in the reverse direction to search for the position where the beginning of the area is marked, and this is a time consuming work.
As a related art, a document processing device is known, which is provided with a plurality of display control circuits, a display screen displaying a plurality of images independently and a changeover means on a keyboard for selectively instructing the display control circuits to execute an image processing (see Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2878/1983).